The Turning Point That Helped Nasr AbuOleim Build a Florida Business Portfolio

Nasr AbuOleim, the founder of Victory Oil Management, came from humble beginnings. Though today he is the president of Victory Oil Management and a real estate developer, he started out as just a young man with a dream. However, through self-discipline and resilience, he worked tirelessly to turn this dream into a reality, and the result is Victory Oil Management.  

AbuOleim says he originally immigrated from Jordan to the U.S. with only $900 to his name. During his first period living in the States, he faced early struggles, including overcoming a new language barrier, dealing with feelings of isolation, and surviving solely on eggs as his source of nutrients. 

Through it all, though, he remained ambitious about his American dream and decided to invest in himself. He bought a local gas station and began to work hard to scale it. In a very short period of time, he shared that he had achieved a 300% growth for the business. 

Behind the Turnaround

The turnaround came from three major changes: improving the store’s physical condition, creating a stronger sales culture, and integrating the different parts of the business to increase overall volume. 

First, he focused on the condition and presentation of the location. AbuOleim says, “When I bought the store, it was run-down, so one of the first things I did was have it cleaned from top to bottom. Every shelf was cleaned and organized, and I had the inside repainted. I wanted customers to immediately feel the difference when they walked in.”

On top of this, he also restocked the shelves properly and paid much closer attention to what customers were actually seeking out and purchasing in the gas station. In this way, he made a much more concentrated effort to establish a rapport with the customers and to meet their needs in an effective fashion. “That changed the atmosphere from a neglected store into a clean, professional, customer-focused business,” AbuOleim says.

A New Staff

Second, he shares that he hired new employees to build a much stronger customer-service and sales culture. By restructuring how employee incentives worked and making it clear that there was room for these workers to grow within the company, AbuOleim says he was able to completely reorient the workplace environment. 

He introduced new promotions, and employees were trained to upsell and tell customers about deals, even if they originally came in for only one item. As he explains, “We would run offers like buying three items for a deeper discount. I also created incentives for employees, including weekly bonuses for the person who sold the most car washes or the most promotional items. That gave them a sense of ownership in the success of the business and helped increase sales volume significantly.” 

A Cohesive Whole

Lastly, AbuOleim sought to make every part of this business work as a cohesive whole. His strongest example of this was the broken automated car wash, which was on the property when he bought it. Where the previous owners had seen it as baggage that was not worth worrying about, AbuOleim saw it as an untapped opportunity. He worked to get it operational again and connected the car wash promotion directly to fuel sales. “If a customer purchased gas, they would receive a discount on a car wash. Since the car wash had higher profit margins, we could offer attractive discounts while still improving profitability. That strategy increased both gas volume and car wash sales. To me, that was the key business lesson: when you connect multiple profit centers correctly, you create momentum across the whole operation rather than relying on one stream of income,” AbuOleim details.

From One Store to a Wider Portfolio

AbuOleim states he bought his first store for $90,000, received an offer, and sold it for $250,000 after one year of operating it. That was the moment he realized this was more than a one-time success. “It showed me that my real opportunity was not just in owning one business and trying to save on payroll by being stuck in operating the store all day, but rather in building systems, empowering people to free up my time so that I can scale into the next opportunity. That is when buying, improving, and flipping gas stations became my niche.”

Although that approach marked the beginning of his career, AbuOleim says Victory Oil Management has since expanded beyond buying and selling individual gas stations. The company now has numerous locations across Florida, while his work has grown to include real estate ownership, acquisitions, and the development of multimillion-dollar projects.

This shift required AbuOleim to move from directly operating a single store to building systems and teams capable of supporting a wider portfolio. It also led him to focus increasingly on owning the real estate beneath gas stations and pursuing other property-development opportunities.

“Today, those lessons afforded me the opportunity to be a real estate owner of many locations. Instead of focusing on the business aspect of a gas station, my goals became owning the real estate of those gas stations along with other properties and developing larger-scale projects,” he says.

His experience with the first location therefore became a foundation for a broader business strategy rather than a pattern of simply purchasing and reselling run-down gas stations. According to AbuOleim, the operational principles he learned during that initial turnaround have continued to inform the management of Victory Oil Management’s locations and development projects across Florida.

Today, AbuOleim continues to evaluate opportunities in operations and real estate while emphasizing the systems, relationships, and long-term planning required to manage growth. As he describes it, “You just keep growing and see what opportunities you want to take next.”